Search and preview standards

General information

The Online Browsing Platform is a platform that allows you to access the standards online. Some parts of some standards are available for free on the platform, and these can help you decide which standard is the right one for you.

The OBP is also used to access and purchase graphical symbols, country codes, terms & definitions, and the online collections of standards.

You can pay for your order with a credit card or via bank transfer. No debit cards are accepted.

The credit cards accepted are MasterCard, Visa, and American Express. Your credit card information will be secure with the use of our Secure Transaction System.

Bank transfers have to be made in Swiss Francs (CHF) and must include your order number. Note that all bank charges have to be paid by the purchaser. If you choose this payment method, you will receive an email with the bank information. Bank transfers can take around 3 working days to be processed.

You will receive an email confirmation and will be asked to validate your account.

Editing your Account Information

Go to your Account and click on “Profile”. There you will be able to change the information you need. Note that this information is the one that will be displayed on your invoice, so make sure you keep it updated.

Once you have made the payment and received a confirmation for your order, the electronic document can be accessed from the Account. You will find the document under the tab “Products," where you can either access it and view it online or download it for your use.

It is important to know that all electronic files are subject to ISO Copyright, which you will need to comply with.

If you purchased a product in CD or paper format, then it will be shipped to you. Shipments are sent either on the same day or the next business day after your order has been received. These are shipped by the ISO Central Secretariat in Switzerland according to your delivery method:

If you need additional copies, go to your Account, under the tab “Orders” and select the invoice for your order and press the "Email" button. A copy of the invoice will be sent to you by email.

We regrets to inform you that once an order has been confirmed and an invoice has been generated, the invoice information cannot be changed. Therefore please make sure that all the information is up to date in your Account.

ISO standards in PDF, ePub or paper format come with a single user license. When you purchase a standard, it will be watermarked with your name, which means that you and only you have the right to use this standard. For more information, please contact us at copyright@iso.org.

Standards and Handbooks

The electronic documents can be accessed from your Account. You will find the document under the tab “Products”, where you can either access it and view it online on the Online Browsing Platform (OBP) or download it for your use.

It is important to know that all electronic files are subject to ISO Copyright, which you will need to comply with.

If you have a hardcopy, you are allowed to share it with any person that wants to read it. However, you cannot copy the text by scanning it, photocopying it, or reproducing it in any other way.

For electronic files, you can store them on any device, and you are allowed to print one copy only. You are not allowed to make copies or transfer the electronic file which you have purchased, or reproduce parts of it. For more information, please contact us at copyright@iso.org

ePub is short for “electronic publication”. It is a format optimized for tablets, e-readers and smartphones. It allows you to easily navigate the publication on a small, touch screen.

On iOS, you can download iBooks from the AppStore for an optimized reading experience. To add the file to your Apple device, you can download the file from your Account and add it to the iTunes Library.

All downloadable standards are watermarked. We use watermarks in order to protect ISO’s Copyright. A watermark is additional information that has been added to a document to identify the rightful licensee of the document. Using a watermark is a means of personalizing each standard that you download.

By default, the watermark in the PDF file displays (on each page of the document) the order number, the download date, and the email address of the contact provided in the Account.

If you bought a Collection of Graphical Symbols, you will find it under the tab “Subscriptions”. When you buy a subscription to a collection of Graphical Symbols, you have access to all the symbols in .eps and .ai formats.

If you purchased an individual graphical symbol, this one will be available under the tab “Products” of your Account.

When you purchase a collection, it will be updated anytime there is a new product. These are part of your subscription, and any modification in the collection will be updated automatically in your Account free of charge.

A subscription to a graphical symbols collection lasts for a year. It is automatically renewed every time. If you want to cancel your subscription, you have to go to your subscription in your account and select “Stop Auto-renewal”.

When you purchase a single-user license, you are the only person allowed to access the content, and these cannot be shared with anyone.

On the other hand, a multiple-user license allows you to share the online collection with other users. In this case, the user who purchases the standard has to share the collection with the other users. For multiple-user licenses, the limit is 10 users per collection.

If you bought a multiple user subscription to ISO publications then you can create individual accounts for as many users as the number of users your subscription includes.

To do this, go to subscriptions in your account and select ‘Manage User’. You will then be able to add users and give them access to your content. You are allowed to cancel multiple user accounts at any time and to create new ones for other multiple users.

When you purchase a collection, it will be updated anytime there is a new product. These are part of your subscription, and any modification in the collection will be updated automatically in your Account free of charge.

First of all, you will need to sign into your Account. Then you can go to the Online Browsing Platform, search for the standard and click on “Follow”. If you wish to stop following, then you go to your Account and check the “Following” button in order to do so.

Another possibility is when you buy a standard through the Webstore. On the Shopping Basket, the “Follow” function will be automatically selected. If you do not want to receive notifications about the standard, you can uncheck “Follow”.

You can click on the document reference to access it. If it is already part of your library, you will be able to see the entire document. Otherwise, you will only be able to see the publicly available sections. You can then decide to purchase the standard if you wish.